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The Show Went On, the Fun Went Away

WEST HOLLYWOOD — Those of us who have always wondered why award shows have to be so infernally long got our answer on Sunday night at the Golden Globes: they don’t, but all meaning is derived in such matters from the script that goes with such ceremonies. The windy speeches, the tears of joy, the fashion miscues, all arrayed over remarkable superbeings in gossamer frocks are what people turn the television on for. Without pomp, there is no circumstance, at least in Hollywood.

Promptly at 6 o’clock Pacific time, Jorge Camara, president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, strode onto a gilded stage in the international ballroom of the Beverly Hilton hotel. But instead of handing off to a procession of Hollywood royalty who would reveal the winners, Mr. Camara could only turn to a handful of entertainment television reporters sitting onstage in straight-back chairs.

Just 35 minutes of news-conference-style announcements later, Mary Hart of “Entertainment Tonight” — a brittle smile floating above aggressive décolletage — brought Mr. Camara back onstage to announce that “Atonement” had won best motion-picture drama and the show was over. The journalists in the room all stared at one another. Now what? Out on Wilshire Boulevard, a street that should have been playing host to a conga line of satellite trucks, officious young women toting clipboards and beefy guys in sunglasses night or day, instead looked like a set for a tumbleweed shoot.

On a night when the velvet rope is generally lifted and America is allowed to see its celebrity royalty in full cry, drinking and hamming it up for the cameras, every A-lister in town made it a point to remain sequestered. Hollywood has a notoriously tin ear — its adherents continue to talk of “courage” in the context of acting while the sons and daughters of America are dying in a far-away place — but there are limits. No one last night, not even the winners, wanted to be spotted jackknifing in glee with a Champagne glass in hand at a time when the town is tearing itself in half because of a writers’ strike that has idled most television production, threatened future movie shoots, put thousands of people out work and shows no sign of an imminent end. So there were private little gatherings at the Chateau Marmont, the Avalon and the Peninsula hotels.

Marion Cotillard, the ingénue of the moment and winner of best actress in a musical or drama for her performance as Édith Piaf in “La Vie en Rose,” watched television with friends and then went out to dinner as a Golden Globe winner. Her fellow nominee, Ellen Page of “Juno,” rode the roller coasters at Six Flags Magic Mountain, and Saoirse Ronan, the young star of “Atonement,” spent the day frolicking in the pool with her dad at the Four Seasons instead of sitting through hours of makeup preparation for the carpet. At least someone had fun.

It is hard to suggest that there is a palpable tear in the nation’s fabric from the loss of the Globes — it was, after all, just a party that was canceled — but a historically empty ritual became far more so. The actual iteration of dispensed citations was reminiscent of first grade, in which everyone is special in his own way.

It is worth nothing that the big studios pretty much got stiffed across the board, with the major awards going to their boutique divisions. Perhaps the Hollywood Foreign Press Association felt, as others do, that the current leadership in Hollywood maintains all the imperious prerogatives of feudal Hollywood of old, though not the effectiveness. In the bad old days Lew Wasserman would have made a few calls and both the party and the show would have gone on, even if the strike was rolling. Instead, NBC’s Jeff Zucker refused to budge and cooked up a bizarre work-around show that left viewers confused and his network besmirched. The ratings were abysmal. Only 5.8 million people tuned in to the NBC telecast, compared with 20 million last year.

Richard D. Zanuck, a producer of “Sweeney Todd,” which won the Golden Globe for best film musical or comedy, sounded more like Howard Beale than a freshly decorated film executive. “I’m happy, of course, but I am also outraged,” he said. “This has gotten to the point where people have to say enough, that they are not going to take it anymore.”

Photo

Workers prepared the ballroom at the Beverly Hilton for this years Golden Globes Awards, which lasted about 35 minutes.Credit
Monica Almeida/The New York Times

But for the time being, there is no mighty mogul to knock a few heads together in a back room somewhere and cobble together a deal. The directors are making steady progress in their negotiations with the studios and could announce something soon. But that agreement may not propel the writers toward a deal of their own, and could set off civil war between the lesser-paid rank and file and their more highly compensated brethren. It’s plenty ugly here now, especially absent the diversion of visible human jewelry at the awards and all the ambient militancy, but that doesn’t mean it won’t get uglier still.

The show is often mentioned as the one night that Hollywood comes together. The competitive stakes are there, but they are not Oscar-style make-or-break. But the industry gathered instead around very separate campfires.

A few hours after the event, the Focus Features private dinner was winding down. James Schamus, that company’s chief executive, spent the afternoon cooking homemade pasta dishes at a bungalow for the crew from “Atonement.” He busied himself fetching a glass of wine for Diablo Cody, the screenwriter of “Juno,” who had stopped by and seemed very happy to be among the mentioned. Just outside the bungalow — one recently occupied by Lindsay Lohan — Joe Wright, the young British director of “Atonement,” swam under the reflected neon of the chateau sign, a big victory stogie in his mouth.

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“We just tried to keep the spirit alive in Bungalow One,” said Mr. Schamus, who counts as one of his eccentricities a love of the Golden Globes.

In Santa Monica, Walter F. Parkes, a producer of “Sweeney Todd,” whose star, Johnny Depp, also won for best actor in a musical or comedy, watched the NBC telecast with friends and take-out Chinese food at his home.

“It was surreal,” Mr. Parkes said, using a word that came up a lot Sunday night at the Beverly Hilton and elsewhere. “The win will help in advertising and promotion, of course, but it pales in comparison to having a celebrity like Johnny Depp accept the award live on television. There is real value in seeing him. That’s what people want.”

As it is, Mr. Parkes said Mr. Depp remained in Tokyo, where he and the director Tim Burton are promoting the film. “There was nothing to come back to,” Mr. Parkes said.

One thing, however, did not change on Sunday: everyone here watched the Globes but talked about the Oscars. This year the gossip wasn’t so much about handicapping the races, but whether there will even be a glittering event.

“If there is a quick settlement with the directors’ guild and if it is looked upon by the writer’s guild as a framework for negotiations, and if it brings them back to the table, there might be an Oscar telecast,” Mr. Parkes said. “But that’s a lot of ifs. I wouldn’t buy that new tuxedo just yet.”